The alkali-making celebrity story 1 19 1 is the first and last year that Hou Gang entered Tsinghua University (because of his excellent academic performance, he only needs to study in Tsinghua for one year to study in the United States). I worked on the Fuliji Railway (where roast chicken is cooked) for three years before I entered school. 19 10 was admitted to Tsinghua, and191went. No way, his family is poor, and the Hou family has been farming for generations. His grandfather gave him this name out of expectation for the future. Everyone knows that "Tsinghua is rich and Peking University is poor". At that time, people in Tsinghua still looked down on this poor and big placement student, but others have been studying in this English-taught school for many years (Tsinghua University has a ten-year schooling, and they can go directly to the United States to study after graduating normally in the tenth year). After the final exam of the first semester, I never looked down on him again. In this exam, he got 10. 19 13 went to MIT to study chemistry.
Leather is being discussed in the river. In fact, the earliest chemists had a background in tanning. Liu and Hou also studied tanning for the simple reason that they were unwilling to see China's raw materials slip away in vain and others take money so simply. His doctoral thesis at Columbia University is tanning, not making alkali.
When he was a child, Hou's family was very poor, and he would never forget those days. When I was a child, my family was poor and I couldn't go to school, so I listened outside the private school. He is very talented and hasn't remembered it at school. He is also obsessed with it outside and is regarded as a wizard by the teacher. He is willing to accept him as a student for free. There is another person in the same story, and he is Xing's father. I learned about it from the relationship between Xing, a native of Guiyang, and Cai Zhicheng, a fellow villager. Xing has nothing to do with Zhicheng Cai. Because the prisoner is very poor, and he is a farmer, he belongs to a poor scholar. At the age of twenty-one, he left Guizhou for imperial academy (the last batch) and never returned. At this time, Xing was born. When he returned to Hou, he completely broke through the secret of the Soviet method and wrote the book Alkali Industry in English. On the cover of the book, he is a handsome boy with long braids, holding a waterwheel and a book in a rice field in the south. In this book, the principle, technology, equipment and parameter setting of Sulvi method are recorded. Since then, people in China have changed the original ounce of gold and pound of soda ash into cabbage prices. If this is a fake, then I hope the more fake like China, the better.
Dry chemistry and chemical engineering are actually two directions. Whether this thing can be made should be considered in chemistry, and there are many things to consider in chemical engineering. For example, whether it can be bigger, whether it is safe to be bigger, whether the cost is appropriate, which route is the most suitable, whether diplomacy, economy, machinery and architecture should be understood, and whether it will be annoying.
Speaking of Hou, it is impossible not to say "Hou Shi soda process". How did the soda ash process in Hou Shi come from? Like many of our technologies, others forced it out with their necks stuck.
The earliest soda ash was sold in China by an Englishman, Sulweifa, because there was only one kind, and he could set the price at will. As I said before, the highest time is one ounce of gold and one pound of soda ash. This is simply selling soda ash as silver. 1924, Wynn started driving and made soda ash into ordinary raw materials. When driving for the first time at that time, soda ash turned out to be red, and almost everyone thought it was a basic fault. However, for those who study chemistry, the most important thing is to explore the essence from fleeting phenomena. He realized that the red color must come from the iron in the equipment. The purity of raw materials in China is too high, not as bad as that used in Britain. So he added a little impurity to the raw material (guess what? ), white soda ash came out. Later, he gave the secret to Asan in India, a very NB Tata Group. This story will be told later. He has also been to South Africa, and everyone is pressing Oak Village to see if there is any story.
Sulvi method uses a lot of salt and produces a lot of calcium chloride, which is useless. At the beginning, Wynn was in Nanjing, close to the Yangtze River and Zhejiang saltworks, and the saltworks mostly used Fan Xudong's technology, which was not obvious. After the anti-Japanese war, it will not work in the southwest. This is well salt, which is much more expensive than sea salt, and the output can't keep up with the requirements. At this time, the Germans developed the tea house method, which was much more efficient. So at that time, I sent a delegation to Dehou to discuss the introduction of the tea temple law. I didn't expect that the Germans wouldn't even let them in, suggesting that the soda produced could not be sold in Manchukuo. It doesn't matter if you don't let the door in This sales requirement is too bullying. The delegation immediately left Germany and went to the United States, with only two patent specifications in hand. The invention of Hou's soda-making method was like this. Hou studied in the United States, his people did experiments in Hong Kong, and others did pilot tests in Shanghai (Concession). Through wartime exchanges, he lost hundreds of times bit by bit.
Speaking of which, we are really lucky. The pilot test of Hou Shi soda ash process was completed in Shanghai Concession on 1940. If it is in the future, I really don't know that there will be too many teenagers.
Hou's contribution to China's chemical industry is not only the production method of alkali, but also the basis of three acids and two alkalis. In this process, we can learn about his intelligence and diligence as a China person.
After that, we organized a capable technical team to visit and purchase in the United States. During this period, they bought acid-making equipment, and learned the key technology of acid-making with the unique endurance of China people through soft grinding and hard foaming. When purchasing sulfuric acid equipment, I asked for the production process diagram of ammonium sulfate which has nothing to do with acid production in the factory. Then I turned around and bought a set of ammonium sulfate production equipment from another manufacturer at the price of scrap steel. At this point, Americans' evaluation is more authoritative. "They are so smart." The equipment was shipped back to China, and no large equipment was installed. China people obviously don't have the tradition of buying equipment at one time. Hou personally took someone to design a set. Later, the four plants of sulfuric acid, nitric acid, ammonium sulfate and synthetic ammonia all started successfully at one time.
Unfortunately, before long, the Japanese came. The Japanese were beaten back, but the losses could not be recovered for a while. First, we must ask for the factory equipment that will be taken away. The Kuomintang is too troublesome and procrastinating. Hou published articles in newspapers to create public opinion; The negotiation is good. When the equipment is shipped back, the Americans will unload the parts installed by the Japanese. Later, he said, "What the robbers robbed was a good car, at least a car that could drive. You can't remove the parts that the robbers replaced and replace them with bad ones. " After coming back from the war, the Americans wanted to deliver the goods at the Japanese port, but Hou disagreed, and the things taken by the robbers had to be transported back to China. Compensation for Japanese factories requires that "these compensations are the results of the eight-year anti-Japanese war and cannot be lenient enough to stay as revenge capital." Even garbage, as long as we return to China, is our harvest. ".
In October, Hou, who received his Ph.D. from Columbia University, boarded a ship with the ideal of serving the motherland and set sail for the motherland after eight years' absence. At the invitation of Ying Aiguo industrialist Fan Xudong, he returned to China and became the chief engineer of Wynn Alkali Industry Company.
Li Yong Alkali Industry Company was founded by Fan Xudong in Tanggu, Tianjin on 19 17. The purpose of founding is to produce soda ash from China and break the monopoly of foreigners. Success depends entirely on technology. However, the company can't obtain advanced alkali production technology. At that time, the ammonia-alkali method (also known as Sulvi method) was completely monopolized by the Sulvi Association in Europe and America. 1920, Mr. Chen Tiaofu, who went to the United States to find talents, met Hou in new york, and their strong desire to revitalize the national industry made them hit it off.
The principle of Sulvi method is simple, but it is difficult to make alkali forever by this method, and you have to explore it yourself. Hou knows that it is difficult to start a business and needs hard work. After returning home, he took off his suit, put on blue overalls and rubber shoes, and appeared at the scene and workshop.
The commissioning process of Li Yong Soda Plant is like a canoe in the vast sea, and it will encounter storms and reefs at any time. Various technical problems will suddenly strike at any time. First, the ammonia distillation tower was blocked, and then the combustion furnace was scarred. Hou led the engineers, fighting day and night, groping day and night, and working hard and creatively every step forward.
On August 1924 and 13, the soda plant will be put into production. People gather at the outlet of alkali, just like looking forward to the birth of a third-generation child, hoping to see the birth of Zhongyan as soon as possible. But alkali is not white, but red and black, which can't be compared with foreign alkali. Shareholders began to be disappointed, suspicious and even disheartened. Fan Xudong thinks it is more important to go ahead despite difficulties at this time, and insists on driving. However, it never rains but it pours. Finally, the combustion furnace cracked and the factory had to stop working. Hobonde went to America and re-ordered the advanced calciner.
On August 29th, 1924, the soda plant was put into operation for the second time. When the workers pulled open the brake baffle of the alkali outlet, the alkali surface like snow gushed out from the outlet, and everyone around them cheered. Hou couldn't help shedding tears of sadness, happiness and gratitude.
The successful manufacture of soda ash in China has broken the monopoly of foreign goods in China and the western blockade of soda ash production technology. 1In August, 926, the World Expo was held in Philadelphia, and Wynn's "Red Triangle" brand soda won the evaluation of "symbol of China's industrial progress" and won the gold medal in the conference.
/kloc-at the beginning of 0/938, Hou decided to build Yonglichuan factory in Sichuan. However, the concentration of salt water in local deep wells is low. For example, the utilization rate of salt in Sulvi process is only 70%, and the cost is considerable. Later, I wanted to use the tea house method improved by the Germans. Although this method is immature, the utilization rate of salt reaches 90% and the waste liquid is almost zero.
1In August, 938, Hou led a delegation to Berlin for investigation, intending to purchase the patent of Tea Temple Law. I don't know the moral day, but I've been secretly colluding and trying to kill them. During the negotiations, the German side first offered a high price to make things difficult, and then proposed: "In the future, it is not allowed to sell products patented by the Tea Temple Law in the three northeastern provinces. "Germany publicly denied that the three northeastern provinces were dumping sites in China, and the negotiations were immediately terminated because the conditions insulted national rights. The door to buying patents has been closed. Hou said with deep feelings, "people with yellow hair and green eyes can get it out, but people with black hair and black eyes can't?" "
Determined to go his own way, Hou Deyang moved to new york, improved the Sulway process and created a new method of alkali production. The disadvantage of Sulway method is that sodium in salt combines with carbonate in lime to form needed sodium carbonate, while chlorine combines with lime to form useless calcium chloride, and 30% of salt does not react. We must improve these shortcomings.
To create a new alkali path, we must first set up a laboratory. 1in the spring of 939, a laboratory was established in Hongkong, and the experimenter was remotely commanded by Hou in new york. Hou thoroughly studied two patent specifications about the tea-temple method, planned all the contents of the new alkali-making experiment, and gave clear instructions on the specific objectives and experiments, giving detailed guidance in time. After more than 500 cycle tests and more than 2000 sample analyses, the new process was finally completed at 1940.
The post-process is a combination of ammonia-alkali process and synthetic ammonia process, and the utilization rate of salt can reach 95%. Chlorine in salt no longer produces useless calcium chloride, but is made into agricultural nitrogen fertilizer ammonium chloride; Moreover, alkali production and synthetic ammonia are integrated, which simplifies the production process, saves equipment and greatly reduces investment.
194 1 in March, people decided to name the new combined soda production method "Hou's soda production method". Although the research on Hou's alkali production method originated from Cha 'an method, it finally deviated from the characteristics of Cha 'an method, forming the whole process of close integration of alkali production industry and synthetic ammonia industry, and pushing the world's alkali production industry technology to a new peak.